The Possession - Zak Bagans
by ladyc0bra
Summary: One dark and stormy night, Zoe Scott plays a ouija board with her two best friends. All three of them were sceptics until strange things start happening to Zoe once she's alone and in her dreams she's visited by the mysterious, dark and alluring Zak, who tells her to release him from the afterlife so he can protect her. But is Zak the exact monster she needs to be protected from?
1. Chapter 1

Lightning flared across the dark, raging sky over the small town in northern Louisiana. The wind was blowing at an annoying 60 mph, howling and whining through every tight space. Stray and wild animals took desperate cover under anything they could find: vehicles, old parts, carelessly open sheds and even in garbage cans. The rain was coming down horizontally, pelting the stained window of an intriguing dark green house on Silver Street. Inside that house were three best friends, taking refuge around a warm fireplace, which happened to be their only light source after the storm knocked out the power. One girl, the owner of the interesting little house, was staring bluntly out the stained window and watching as leaves and various other debris flew and tumbled down her street.

"The rain's really coming down," she noted, letting the blind fall back into place. She heaved a sigh. "Of course it storms on the day I actually had plans."

"Hey, if you ask me, this Mike guy missed out on a perfect opportunity to comfort and cuddle you in front of a fireplace during a spooky storm," One of the other girls piped up, warming her hands in front of the flames. "He's a dunce and not worth your time."

"You say that about every guy I date."

"Are you even dating him yet, Zoe? I mean, you technically had to cancel your first official date, so where does that leave you?" The third girl asked, snuggling into a tighter ball under a fleece blanket in the corner of the couch that the girls had pushed over to face the fire.

"In limbo," Zoe sighed again, plopping herself down onto the couch. "I can't even text or call him because there's no cell service. The storm's screwing with the tower."

"Maybe you should take this storm as a sign to move on,"

Zoe glared down at her friend, who was huddled close to the fire.

"Meridah," she warned.

Meridah shrugged and turned away, muttering "just saying" under her breath.

"I don't understand what your problem with him is," Zoe argued. "I mean, he's a nice guy! You've barely given him a chance."

"He's a nice guy to you because he wants to get you in bed," Meridah replied firmly. "He's not a nice guy in general. Him and his jock friends are public enemy number one to everybody in this town. Just ask Rose, she'll tell you the truth. Rose?"

The other girl on the couch shook her head defiantly.

"Nope, no way am I getting involved in this one. Why don't we get our minds off of it and play a board game or cards or something? If I have to be trapped in a house with arguing girls I'm going to die."

"That's a great idea, actually," Meridah agreed, standing up from the fireplace. "Zoe, you keep your board games in the hallway closet, right?"

"Yeah, top shelf. There's tons there; they were all my mom's at one time or another. Just pick whatever you want. Here, take this candle with you."

Zoe handed her friend a candle for light and Meridah bravely trekked into the dark shadows of the tiny house to choose a game.

"Ugh, I hate storms," Rose muttered, hiding half of her face behind the blanket. "Ever since Katrina hit they scare the ever-living crap out of me."

"I know what you mean," Zoe murmured, fidgeting with her pant leg.

She'd lost her mother during Hurricane Katrina. She could remember everything about the day so clearly. She'd been in Dallas, Texas for a meeting, and she could remember coming back to her hotel room and getting the call that her mother was gone. She cried for days and had to cancel all of her meetings. She couldn't fly back to Clarks, Louisiana right away, since no planes were going there. So she'd been stranded in Dallas, remembering how her mother's face had looked so much like her own. Every time she looked into the mirror she could see her mother in her long, wavy chocolate brown hair, bright, icy blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and warm complexion. During that time, she'd realized she didn't gain much from her father look-wise.

"Zoe! Oh my god, Zoe!" Meridah's voice shocked the two girls a little, causing them to jump.

Meridah came skidding into the living room, nearly sliding right into the arm of the couch. Her frizzy pale blonde hair was sticking out everywhere in a mass of curls and her blue eyes were wide behind navy glasses as she stared at the box she was holding. Rose tilted her auburn head back to read the back of the box.

_"Ouija: The Mystifying Oracle,"_ she read. "Oh, no way in hell am I playing that. You two knock yourselves out."

"What?!" Meridah snapped. "Don't be such a wuss! Are you kidding me? None of this stuff is real, Rose. It's just a game."

"I don't care, I don't like them. My Nana always told me to never, ever touch one. They're bad, you guys. They open doorways for bad things to get through." Rose shook her head and snuggled under her blanket.

"Ugh, whatever," Meridah rolled her eyes. "Are you playing at least, Zoe? Why didn't you tell me you had a Ouija board?"

Zoe shrugged. "Honestly I don't know half the board games I own. I never play them. But yeah, I'll play with you. How does it work?"

The girls sat beside one another and set the board on the floor in front of the fireplace. They put the wooden planchette in the centre of the board and poured over the instructions. Rose didn't speak a word.

"Seems pretty basic to me," Meridah said, tossing the paper instructions on the ground. "What if we contact a ghost, Zoe? Are you gonna scream and cry like a little girl?"

Zoe smirked. "There's no such thing as ghosts. These boards are based off of involuntary muscle movements anyway. I can't believe you don't wanna play, Rose. It's not a big deal."

"To me it's a big deal," Rose muttered. "Just play the stupid thing but leave me out of it."

Zoe shrugged. "Okay, so we put our fingers on the thing like this?"

"Yeah, and we move it around in three circles and then we just barely touch it. One, two, three…ask a question, Zoe."

"Why do I have to ask?"

"Because I told you to ask."

"Yeah, because that's a valid reason—"

"Ugh, is there anybody here with us right now?" The room fell dead silent at Meridah's sudden question. As is expected when trying to contact the dead, a spooky sort of suspense settled on the girls' shoulders.

The planchette didn't move an inch.

"What's your name?" Meridah asked.

Zoe, who had been biting her lip with anxiety, suddenly opened her mouth.

"Do you know our names?" she asked.

Rose whined behind them.

Suddenly the triangle-shaped planchette began to shift and twitch in the centre of the board. The colour momentarily drained out of all the girls' faces. It began to slide towards the lower right half of the board.

"A-are you…?" Meridah breathed.

Zoe shook her head. "Nope…"

The planchette began to move more erratically and with more speed. In the circular glass window near its top, the letters Z, O, and E appeared in quick succession. The girls didn't even get to read them out as it landed on them.

"Oh my fucking god, Zoe," Meridah whispered.

"What do I do…?" Zoe asked, stunned.

"Ask more questions! Obviously it—or they—want to talk to you."

"Oh, um…who are you?" she asked.

The planchette ominously shifted back to the Z and stayed there. The girls moved it back to the centre of the board after a moment.

"Z, okay…that didn't answer much," Zoe breathed nervously. "Um, do you know me?"

If shifted to YES.

"Zoe, what if it's…" Meridah's voice died out before she could finish. She didn't want to say the words. She still wasn't sure how to address it around her friend.

Zoe swallowed and straightened her back a little.

"Mom?" she whispered softly.

The planchette very slowly slid across the board to NO.

Meridah's face scrunched up. "Who are you then? Who's Z?"

"I don't know," Zoe shrugged. "Maybe it wanted to spell my name again."

"This is really weird. I swear I'm not moving it! Ask it something else."

"What are you doing here?" Zoe asked.

The planchette slid across to several letters, this time letting the girls call them out as it landed on each one.

"P, R, O, T, E, C, T," they said in unison.

"Who are you protecting?" Zoe asked eagerly. "What are you protecting them from?"

The planchette didn't move an inch. Suddenly the candles that were on the coffee table and all around the couch went out all at once in a blur of wind and smoke. All the girls jumped and screamed. Zoe released the planchette and jumped back, skittering into the edge of the couch. Meridah hastily said goodbye and wiped the planchette across the words, not noticing that her friend didn't do the same thing, which was supposed to close off any connections they made with spirits.

"Oh my god that was terrifying," Zoe said, clutching her chest as her heart raced beneath her fingers.

"Can you guys stop playing now?" Rose squeaked, now entirely hidden and shaking under the fleece blanket.

"Yeah we're done we both said goodbye to whoever we were talking to," Meridah confirmed.

Zoe froze and gave the blonde girl a look. "When did we say goodbye?"

"Just now," Meridah said. "I wiped the thing across the GOODBYE on the board and said it. You have to do that to seal off the 'portals' or whatever. Everyone playing has to do it for protection."

"I didn't do it," Zoe shook her head.

"Zoe!" Rose exclaimed, pulling the blanket down a little. "You probably opened a doorway in your house!"

Zoe took a moment and then rolled her eyes.

"Don't be stupid, Rose. You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right? That's some Hollywood crap, really it is."

"Oooh, the demon's gonna come out and get you, Zoe!" Meridah giggled darkly, wiggling her fingers in Zoe's face. "You invited him in!"

Zoe playfully slapped her friend's fingers away. "First of all, if ghosts don't exist, demons sure as hell don't. You guys are nutcases, I swear."

Meridah laughed along with her friend and put a hand on her belly.

"I'm kinda peckish," she announced. "What do you got that doesn't involve baking or cooking or microwaving?"

"I think I have some Jell-O in the pantry," Zoe smirked.

"C'mon, you gotta have something!" Meridah groaned. "I've just had a muffin all day."

"Alright, c'mon guys we'll go see if I have anything," Zoe stood up and stepped over the Ouija on the floor, grabbing a match from her pocket and re-lighting a candle to take. "We can play the game called 'who can close the fridge door fastest to conserve the freshness of my food in a power outage.'"

"Sounds like a lot more fun than the dumb game you were playing before," Rose grumbled, finally getting up off the couch still wrapped in the blanket.

"Oh, get over it, you crazy," Meridah said. "It's just a game."

"Then how do you explain the candles all going out, huh?"

"I don't know; some breeze from outside must've gotten in somewhere. It was nothing."

The three girls traipsed into the kitchen to hunt for food, forgetting all about the Ouija board still lying on the living room floor. The planchette sat in the centre of the board at an eerie, disturbed-looking angle. What the girls didn't know was what they couldn't see: the Ouija board wasn't the only thing seated on that floor. There was a dark man sitting cross legged on the opposite side of the board. His ringed fingers were lightly pressed on the pointy edge of the planchette, the opposite end from where the girls had been touching it. He was dressed in black pants and a thin black dress shirt that only generously showed his defined muscles and parts of the odd, rune-like tattoos on his arms, with pale skin that was being drowned in the dancing shadow of the firelight. His hair was as black as the darkest corner of Zoe's house, and it was flipped up in a spiky fin atop his head. Very slowly, he turned his face from the board game to follow the girls as they walked out. His eyes, the colour of indicolite, were trained on Zoe's back: the one who had freed him. And then, in a blink of those same eyes, all colour had vanished from them. He no longer had an iris or a pupil; it looked like his eyes were drowning in a deep black oil slick.

Finally, someone slipped up and he was free. After centuries of trying to escape from hell, he finally had his chance. He just had one more step to complete before he could be completely whole again; no longer an invisible ghost, but entirely capable of walking amongst the humans and being mistaken for one. It gave him a perverse amount of pleasure knowing all he had to do was seduce or terrify the poor girl into giving him what he wanted. Soon he'd be able to seize the world once again, and Zoe would help him do it.

She'd forgotten to say goodbye and in doing so, she had unknowingly released hell on earth.


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you guys have enough blankets down here?" Zoe asked, checking on her best friends one last time before they all went to bed for the night.

"Yeah, Zoe, we're good," Rose agreed, getting comfy on a spare mattress on the floor. "Thanks for letting us stay the night."

"Well the other option was to send you out into that ridiculous storm and if you think I'd ever do that you're nuts," Zoe smiled. "How about you, Mer? You good?"

Meridah nodded from her makeshift bed on the couch.

"Nice and comfy," she affirmed.

"Alright, I'm off to bed then. Goodnight, you guys. I love you!" Zoe said, waving at them as she climbed the stairs, candle in hand.

"Goodnight, Zoe! Love you!" The two girls said in unison.

Zoe climbed the dark, narrow staircase into her upstairs level, which admittedly was just a hallway, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a couple closets. Her house was small but it was quirky and it had character and that's what she loved about it. She'd been renting it for about two years, and the man she was renting it from was always saying how he was just going to sell it to her someday for dirt cheap because he didn't want to have to worry about it anymore. She kept telling him she'd love that, but he had yet to sell her the house. Zoe was patient though, and she didn't mind paying cheap rent for the time being.

She wandered into her room and peeled back her quilt and blankets on her bed, grabbing her pyjamas from underneath her pillows. She traded her blue jeans for baggy pink and white pyjama pants, her white designer top for her old Harvard shirt, and removed the fashionable white and black scarf she'd been wearing around her throat. She set the candle down on top of her dresser, looking at her reflection in her mirror as she took out her earrings, wiped off her makeup, and brushed her wavy hair which quickly gained volume from the procedure. She looked at herself for a minute as the shadows of the flame danced across her features and she shivered. It looked creepy.

She blew out the candle and shuffled off to her bed. She never realized how tired she felt until she was totally ready for bed and then it would hit her like a ton of bricks. She liked that though because it allowed her to fall asleep straight away. That night, however, came with minor tossing and turning, despite how tired she was. She couldn't shake the feeling that she'd forgotten about something somewhere, and for a split second she felt as though she was being watched. When she sat up in her bed though, there was no one in her room but her. So, with that in mind, she nestled down amongst her pillows and blankets and listened to the rain and wind outside until it eventually relaxed her into a troubled slumber.

Normally when Zoe dreamt, she was in some faraway magical land with a famous husband and hundreds of thousands of dollars at her fingertips. She was always very vain and selfish in her dreams, almost the exact opposite from how she was in reality. That's what Zoe liked about dreams, though: she could be anyone she could think of, anywhere in the world, and no one would know but her if she remembered it in the morning. There was something magical about that and about dreams in general.

On that particular night, however, Zoe's dreams were something she'd never experienced before. One minute she was sipping from the most expensive wine bottle in the world staring up into the starriest Paris night sky to ever exist, and the next she was hurtling painlessly up into those same stars she'd just been gazing at. She didn't scream or twitch and wake up, nor did she feel her insides shifting uncomfortably as one normally would when falling into nothingness. Maybe it was because it was only a dream, or maybe it was because she knew she wasn't in danger.

She landed perfectly on her feet, although she was in an entirely different setting. Everything was dark and abandoned looking; she was in an evacuated city with gloomy black sky overhead and clusters of fire scattered around the ground. She felt painfully alone and confused. What had happened? It certainly wasn't the platform of high dining and romantic notions she'd been on before. Was it a nightmare? If so, when did the scary part come in?

All along the charred, black street were remains of houses. Some were in better condition than others, and some were nothing but ashes of memories on the ground. Soot fell from the sky in floating chunks and Zoe had to keep shaking them out of her hair. Seeing the ruin that lay out in front of her made her sad. Who had once lived on that street? It was a street just like her own, it was likely home to people just like her, and it was reduced to nothing. Could those people have been friends of hers? Their lives were gone, and to make it worse, so were their memories. Perhaps the house that was reduced to a pile of dust with nothing left standing except for half the fireplace was once her charming little home. Now, there was nothing.

One house at the very end of the street was still entirely intact, if a little charred on the outside. There was a flickering light on in the house and Zoe wondered if it was leftover fire or an intentional one on the end of a wick. The way it was flickering didn't look prominent enough to be a large flame, so she held her hope that it was a candle and someone was inside. Maybe they could tell her what had happened all around them.

She walked up the soot covered pathway to the house very quietly, making sure to keep herself out of sight of the windows. Carefully, she pressed herself up against the outside of the house, by the door. It was open just a little bit, and she was relieved to first see candles set up all along the ground and then a quivering shadow in the corner. It was tall and large, but for some reason she didn't feel a hint of fear. It was actually a person who may be able to help her!

She pushed the door open slowly, wishing to sneak in if she could, but it squeaked and cracked under her force. Still, the towering figure in the corner didn't move. She felt confused, but still did not fear it. She stepped inside and took very precise steps in case the floor was weak. She managed to get fairly close to the breathing, dark figure. He was facing the corner of the room, showing her only his back. She could see his black hair crawling down the back of his neck to a tattoo of some sort that was cut off by his black shirt. What she could see of it looked like two prongs on some sort of staff or something. He looked like he had a hat on; nothing more than a standard baseball hat. She stood there analyzing his back and he didn't say one word for the longest time until Zoe began taking another step towards him.

"Are you scared?"

Zoe froze, one leg extended slightly in front of her body in the step she hadn't taken yet. She stared at the centre of his back, expecting him to turn around and face her. When he didn't, a tiny bit of fear trickled into her lungs and froze them over. She wondered what he was keeping from her. Was he horribly disfigured? Was he going to jump out and scare her awake? Who was he?

"Are you scared?" he asked again, a little louder that time. His voice was gravelly and extremely dark.

Zoe swallowed and took a soft step back, hoping to sneak out the door unnoticed.

"Should I be?" she asked.

He nodded slowly.

"Well I'm not," she said, although she was still walking towards the door. "There's nothing to be afraid of here, it's my dream."

"You're half right," he said ominously. "You're not going to get hurt, at least. But this isn't your dream."

"What? I'm sleeping, how is this not my dream?" Zoe narrowed her eyes.

He finally turned around to look at her. Standing straight, he had to be 6'2 at least. His presence was something the likes of which Zoe had never encountered, not even in her dream world. Not only was he impossibly beautiful and dark, but the energy he gave off was palpable. Zoe could practically feel it getting into her head and making it feel fuzzy. He gave her a crooked smile, his shadowed blue eyes narrowing only slightly. As frightening as he was, he was perhaps the most handsome man Zoe had ever seen.

"I'm giving you this dream," he explained. "I'm in your head."

She shook her head, trying desperately to distract herself from his dominating presence. She was so confused.

"Who are you?" she asked.

He smiled again and it was awhile before he answered. For a moment Zoe wondered if he was going to try and pull the mysterious card and leave his name a secret, in which case she would've pinched herself repeatedly until she woke up. She didn't have time for that and the "dream" was quickly turning into a nightmare.

"You can call me Zak," he said.

"Why are you here? I mean, why are you talking to me?"

"Because I need your help, Zoe," he said. "I need you to release me."

Zoe furrowed her eyebrows. "Okay, this has to be a dream because I have no clue what you're talking about."

"You freed me from that board," Zak said, disregarding her comment.

"W-what?"

"The Ouija board, you freed me from it. You forgot to say goodbye to me, so I was freed. The only problem is I'm just a ghost right now and only you can see me. So until you free me, I'll be here, haunting your house during the day and your head every single night when you fall asleep." He said, stepping closer to her.

"I don't believe you," Zoe shook her head. "That was just a game; there's no such thing as ghosts."

"Oh, really? Do you want to chance it? I'll warn you, I'm very powerful. For instance, right now we're in the fiery, ashy remains of a post-apocalyptic world, but in the blink of an eye…"

He put his hand over her eyes for only a second and when he lifted it, they were in an entirely different scene.

"…We could be in a beautiful meadow somewhere in the Midwest, listening to the animals talk."

His voice was right next to her ear and Zoe jumped at the shock of sudden change. All the burning buildings and the fiery sky were gone, replaced by fluffy white clouds and tall, soft grass blowing in a gentle breeze around their legs. Deer were coming out of the trees in herds to feast on the crop and they didn't seem to notice Zoe and Zak. It was like something out of Bambi. That was when Zoe realized that she wasn't dreaming, not exactly. If it were a dream, she'd hardly even notice the complete change of scenery, much less be afraid of it. It was as if she was entirely awake but trapped in a different dimension. Cold fear trickled down her spine and she turned to face him. He looked rather amused with himself.

"I still don't understand," Zoe said. "If you were freed from the stupid board then what else is there to do? What do you mean I have to release you? What am I releasing you from?"

"It's a long story, I'm not sure you wanna—"

"Yes, I do wanna," Zoe interrupted. "Explain it to me, please."

Zak sighed and plucked a long blade of grass from the ground by his feet. He slipped it between his fingers like a feather, twirling it in the air in front of his face.

"I've been trapped in purgatory for a century and a half," he said. "In 1863 I was one of the many supernatural beings that roamed the New World, setting up governments and establishing law and order. I was fighting in the Civil War for the south when I was captured and held prisoner by the north. They were all mundane humans and when they learned that I was something above that, they were terrified. They tortured me with methods specific to my kind until they could get someone in who would banish me into purgatory. The only problem was, the guy they got to do it wasn't very skilled. He sent me away and although I was wounded and weak for a very long time, I was still able to talk to the living through séances, prophets, and eventually those little Ouija board games that sceptical women like to play when they're alone and in the dark."

"What are you? A vampire?" Zoe asked. She felt silly letting that word past her lips.

Zak scoffed. "No, I'm not a vampire. A vampire wouldn't be half this cunning."

"What are you then?"

"I'm someone who is very grateful to you for freeing me. Now I need you to release me so I can come back to your side; the side of the living."

"What would I have to do to release you?" Zoe asked.

"Well,"

Zak walked in front of her, momentarily blocking her line of vision. When he was gone, they were in Zoe's room. Again she was taken aback by the sudden change that she knew she hadn't created herself. That was something way too far out of her realm of imagination.

"In order to release someone, a.k.a me, from purgatory, you just have to do a little sacrificial ceremony…chant a few Latin incantations…"

"Wait, sacrificial? Do I have to kill somebody?" Zoe's eyes got wide.

Zak smirked sadistically but shook his head. "No, unfortunately not. You do have to sacrifice a few drops of your blood, but that's a minor detail. I wouldn't worry about it."

"What'd happen to me if I…" Zoe's sentence collapsed and she dropped her gaze to the floor.

"Oh, nothing," Zak said, tilting her chin up to look in her eyes. "No, nothing would happen to you. I give you my word."

"Do you do bad things to people?" Zoe asked. "I don't want to be a part of that."

Zak narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. "What makes you think I do bad things to people?"

"I just—I don't know."

"Right, well, rest assured no one you care about will be harmed," he said with a quick smirk. He looked around her room, running his fingers along her bed sheets. "You've got a cute little room here. I think I might make it my room too, if you don't mind."

"W-what do you mean?" Zoe asked, stepping around to the side of the bed to face him.

"Well I'm a ghost in your house now," Zak explained bluntly. "I haunt this place. And I think I could have a lot of fun congregating my poltergeist activity in here, don't you?"

Zoe's mouth fell open slightly. If everything happening around her was real, then Zak was being completely honest about haunting her. So it wasn't just the sudden realization that ghosts were in fact real that hit her hard, it was also the fact that she'd accidentally inherited a mysterious spirit of her own. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"Oh, don't worry about it now darling," Zak cooed, gently putting his hands on her upper arms. "You only have to deal with my spirit until you agree to release me."

He walked around behind her, gently pushing her thick brown hair to one side. His fingers were cool as they brushed the vulnerable skin on her neck and she shivered. Something wasn't right; she could feel it in his touch and in his presence. There was something dark in his eyes, something twisted in his smile. He was all wrong but she couldn't figure out why, or what exactly it was.

His lips were by her ear and she could feel them on her skin, but his voice sounded like it was inside her head. It terrified her into a frozen state.

"And I'll be right here, the staple to all of your dreams and nightmares until you release me. You'll see me tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that, and the night after that…"

His voice dissipated and Zoe sat up straight in her bed, gasping for air. His lingering words were on a constant loop in her head. Despite how her logical thought told her she was alone in her sun-brightened room, she had a strange feeling that she was anything but alone.


	3. Chapter 3

Shakily, Zoe made her descent down the stairs into her kitchen. It was only eight in the morning, but the storm clouds had cleared and the sun was flooding in through her windows. She likely would've opted to sleep a little longer if her nightmare hadn't scared her half to death. She still couldn't figure out if it'd been just that, a nightmare, or if it was actually real. Could it really be possible that life after death existed? And furthermore, was it not actually impossible that a supernatural being could get inside of her head and influence her dreams? The more she thought about it the more uncomfortable she became and she just wanted a nice, warm distraction in the form of coffee.

Rose and Meridah were still sleeping peacefully in their makeshift beds. Zoe stepped around them very carefully and as she did so she was struck by a small pang of jealousy. They didn't look like they were dreaming of an alluring mystery ghoul who promised to haunt her head and home for the rest of her life until she conducted some scary ritual for him. However, at the same time she was okay with it being only her who had the dream if it meant it kept her friends safe. If it happened to Meridah she wouldn't believe in it until it drove her crazy, and poor Rose wouldn't stand a chance she'd be so afraid. But again Zoe wondered if it was nothing more than a dream. She liked to keep telling herself that's all it was, anyway.

The gurgling noise of her coffee maker soothed her burnt out nerves a little as she popped some bread in her toaster. She was perversely happy that the power was back on. It almost made her want to shake her head at how heavily the human race relied on their technology and electricity, considering the days when all anyone had was candlelight and their own devices. Instead, she just continued to reach into her stainless steel fridge and grab her store-bought margarine and strawberry jam and her vanilla flavoured coffee creamer.

While she was licking the remaining jam off of her butter knife after applying a generous glob of the stuff to her toast, she was made aware of a creak in the floorboards behind her. She jumped a little, suddenly getting flashbacks of her nightmare, but when she spun around she was relieved to notice that it was only a sleepy Rose shuffling into the kitchen to join her.

"Good morning," she squeaked right before a yawn. "I smelled coffee…"

Zoe smiled. "Yeah, I'm just making some now. You can have a cup and help yourself to whatever breakfast food you want. You know where it all is."

"Of course, this isn't my first rodeo," Rose smiled, opening Zoe's fridge. "At least the storm passed, hey? I was afraid it was going to be raining and gross for a second day in a row."

"Oh, I know," Zoe breathed a sigh of relief. "Looks like life can return to normal for another day."

"Yeah. Well thanks for letting us stay over. I know it was an impromptu sleepover, but it was fun nonetheless."

"Any sleepover with you guys is fun for me, regardless of the reason," Zoe replied. "The coffee's ready, by the way. Feel free to have some."

"You are a god, Zoe Scott," Rose sang, "an absolute god."

Zoe winked at her overtop of her steaming coffee mug as she took a sip. She wandered over to her small table in the centre of the kitchen and took her seat to consume her small breakfast. She'd never been big on breakfast. Some days she skipped the meal altogether. For some reason she found it a lot harder to whip up an appetizing meal first thing in the morning than it was to do it in the afternoon or evening.

She was chewing her third bite of toast when she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Where she was sitting at the table the entryway into the kitchen from the living room was only visible in her peripherals. So, when she thought she saw a black mass move past the doorway left to right, she snapped her head in that direction. There was nothing in the doorway and nothing that could've made any kind of shadow. It couldn't have been the shadow of a car driving by on the street in front of the house, because she knew for a fact that was implausible because of the trajectory of the sunbeam. Fear weighed in her stomach like an oil slick, poisoning her. She suddenly didn't feel hungry anymore.

"When do you think Meridah will rise from the dead?" Rose asked, taking a seat opposite Zoe at the table.

"What did you say?" Zoe whispered.

"Hm? I asked you when you think Meridah's going to wake up."

"Oh," Zoe looked down at her crumb-filled plate. "I don't know. Noon, if we're lucky."

"Right," Rose chuckled.

Zoe nervously tapped the ceramic outside of her coffee mug with her fingernails. She was nearly bursting at the seams with anxiety and fear and wonder and she needed to let it out somehow. But would shy, sensitive Rose be able to handle it? Would she even believe what Zoe was going to tell her? And if she did believe it, well, what then?

"Hey, Rose, can I talk to you about something?" Zoe asked tentatively. Her brain was still undecided but her lips were already moving.

"Sure, what's up?" Rose asked as she spooned her cereal into her mouth.

"I uh—okay listen, this is going to sound really weird," Zoe clarified, bringing her voice down a few notches. "I mean it's going to sound bat shit crazy; totally mad. But I need you to trust me, okay? I need you to just hear me out because if I don't talk about it to someone I'm going to explode."

"Okay…should I be worried? It sounds like I should be worried." Rose gave her friend a suspicious look.

"No—maybe, I don't know," Zoe sighed. "Last night I had this dream; well, it wasn't really a dream, more of a nightmare, I think."

"Alright, so what? Everyone has dreams and nightmares."

"Yeah but this one was different. I think it had something to do with that stupid Ouija board. Actually, I know it had everything to do with that game. Except you were right, Rose; it's not just a game."

Rose's eyes got wide and she was eerily quiet for a minute. Zoe was mentally screaming at her to talk or give some form of acknowledgement. She couldn't tell by the look on Rose's face if she thought Zoe was crazy or not and ultimately that was driving Zoe up the wall.

"What happened?" Rose finally uttered. "What happened in your dream, Zoe?"

"There was this man in my dream…a very dark man, dressed all in black with black hair and blue eyes and weird tattoos. He said he was giving me the dream and that he was a spirit from the afterlife. Apparently when I didn't say goodbye on that board I freed him from it, or purgatory or something, and that now I have to release him if I want him to leave. It's so confusing and I don't understand—"

"What does that mean? If you freed him from the board isn't he released?"

The fact that Rose was listening that intently threw Zoe off guard for a moment. She still couldn't decide if her friend thought her to be crazy or not, but if she was asking thought-provoking questions then maybe the cards were in Zoe's favour.

"Apparently not," Zoe sighed. "I guess he's just freed from his confinement but in order for him to be more than just a ghost I have to do some sacrificial ritual with my blood. He said until I do that he'll haunt my every dream as well as my house."

Rose's face was white as a sheet. For a second Zoe wondered if Zak was behind her but she didn't dare look.

"Well?" she urged. "Am I crazy or was it just a dream?"

"I don't know," Rose replied quietly. "I've heard of people experiencing this kind of thing before but it's rare. I can ask my dad about it…he's schooled on exorcisms and all that stuff so he might know something useful."

_"An exorcism?"_ Zoe exclaimed. "Rose, I'm not possessed!"

"I'm not saying you are!" Rose argued. "All I'm saying is if this thing is asking you to perform a sacrificial ritual and if it was in some purgatory jail cell once upon a time I think it's pretty obvious that it's no good. You can't let him win, whoever he is."

"He said his name was Zak," Zoe sighed. "He said he'll haunt me forever if I don't! And what if it's just a bad dream and I made it up?"

"My dad might be able to help with that. And I guess you won't know until things start happening, if they do. God I told you. I told you those things were no good. They open portals and now you know! You could have a whole host of supernatural entities roaming your house because of that." Rose shook her head.

"Don't say that," Zoe shuddered at the thought.

"Well it's true! Just don't talk to him, Zoe, whatever you do. Ignore him. Don't make contact."

"But Rose, I think it's too la—"

Their conversation was cut short by Meridah entering the kitchen with her arms stretched above her head and her hair in a messy bun. Both Rose and Zoe looked at her in momentary shock before trying to hide the lingering urgency of their conversation. Zoe wasn't sure if she wanted to tell outspoken Meridah about her problem. If she was being honest, Meridah could be slightly abrasive in the way she reacted to things sometimes.

"Mornin'," Meridah yawned. She blinked at her friends. "Well, don't stop talking on my account, jeeze."

"We weren't talking about you, don't worry," Zoe smiled, deciding to brush it off with humour. "No offense but you're not really gossip worthy."

"Good," Meridah said. "Oh, you have coffee on! You know what I like, Zoe Scott."

Zoe and Rose exchanged a look of relief behind Meridah's back.

"Well we've been friends for long enough now that if I didn't it might be a shame."

"True that."

The girls continued to talk about monotonous things over breakfast and several cups of coffee. It was nearly lunchtime when Rose and Meridah decided to head home and check the storm damage in their yards. Meridah had Zoe's front door open and was just about to walk through it when she realized her car keys were still on the couch. So, leaving the door open, she ran back to grab them and just as she was picking them up there was a loud bang from behind her and all three girls jumped and screamed. The door, which had previously been pulled open, had slammed shut on its own.

"What the hell was that?!" Meridah screeched.

Rose and Zoe stood petrified staring at the door they'd just watched shut on its own. No one spoke for what felt like an hour. Zoe was too petrified to utter a word.

"Did that door just…" Meridah whispered finally, staring at the door like it was going to come to life and attack her. "Zoe…?"

Zoe shook her head slowly. "N-no…it was just the wind…"

"How could it have been the wind?" Meridah asked. "Your door opens inwards and there's barely a breeze outside right now…"

"T-there's gotta be a window open somewhere in the house…it was the wind, it had to be." Zoe said. Despite the fact that she knew there were no windows open in her house, it was all she could think to say. Her rational side was forcing her to believe it to be true.

"Zoe…" Rose was looking at Zoe like she'd grown a second head. Zoe knew Rose was thinking the same thing she was: it'd been real. It wasn't just a dream.

"It was just the wind," Zoe repeated in a hollow voice. "You guys should get going. I'll text you both later."

"Okay…have fun with whatever that was," Meridah said quietly before she hesitantly opened the door and ran out.

Rose turned to look at Zoe in fear.

"You need to get this thing out of your house. I'll ask my dad tonight and see what he says. Whatever is going on here, it wasn't just a dream."

Zoe just nodded and watched Rose leave her alone in her house that was freshly inhabited by someone else besides her. For a second she stood totally still by her small fireplace, too scared to move an inch. But when there were no sounds or shadows around her she forced herself to run up the stairs. She needed to shower. Maybe it'd take some of the edge off.

The steamy water and fruity scents of her shampoo, conditioner and body wash did ease her mind a little, but she could still feel the fear humming in her spine. What had she done? She could've sworn the board was only a game, controlled by involuntary muscle movements in the hands of whoever was controlling the planchette. So how had she acquired a ghost? How was any life after death possible? Was it really true that all those crazies who believed in ghosts were right all along? It made her feel dizzy thinking about it. If ghosts were real, could they all do what Zak did? And if they couldn't, then what the hell was Zak?

She heaved a great sigh and cut off the flow of water. She rung out her hair and was just about to open her shower door when something caught her eye. In the corner of her bathroom near the door she could just see a large, dark human figure through the frosted glass. It made her scream and stumble back into the shower wall, nearly slipping and falling down. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone, like it'd never been there in the first place. Very slowly she opened her shower door and peeked out of the crack. There was nothing she could see in her bathroom except for her foggy reflection in the mirror. She was alone.

She grabbed her towel from the rack and wrapped it around herself before stepping out. She felt vulnerable. What if he was still watching and she just couldn't see him anymore? Did she tell him to go away? She figured she'd feel so silly talking to the open air that she couldn't open her mouth if she tried. Besides, Rose had told her not to communicate with him if she could help it, and since she'd already kind of broken that rule once she didn't want to push it.

She managed to get dressed and comb through her long hair without any more incidents, although she was rather shaky throughout the entire ordeal. She kept wondering how she could get away. She didn't have any errands to run; she'd done everything before the storm had hit as a precautionary habit. She'd been hoping to spend a few days relaxing at home, maybe watching some Netflix and giving herself a spa treatment. But now that felt like it was all gone. She felt hopeless, afraid, and trapped inside her own home. She could hear his voice in her head echoing the words he'd spoken in her dream. It kept her in a cage of brutal anxiety.

She grabbed her laptop and shut the door to her bedroom. She actually found herself locking the door and then she thought, _as if that's going to keep a spirit out, you idiot._ She rolled her eyes at herself but kept it locked nonetheless and sat in the centre of her bed, opening her laptop and plugging in to Google. She felt incredibly silly as she typed in the search bar. _What kind of wacko even researches this stuff?!_

She stared at the words she'd typed in before she pressed enter. _What to do if your house is haunted._ She no longer denied it, at least. She knew there was a spirit in her home and she knew his name and what he looked like and how he talked, and it was all her fault. If only she'd said goodbye in that stupid game she wouldn't have to worry about it. She felt so dumb about it.

There were millions of results in answer to her question. She'd learned early in her scholarly career to always go with the first result first and if it was a dud, well, she was in for a long day of research.

The first result was a YouTube video. She clicked on it and plugged her headphones in. It was a bald man in a black shirt that had some "paranormal society" title on it. His channel had over fifty thousand subscribers and the video had almost a million views, so he had to have some idea what he was talking about, right? She bit down on her lip as he began to talk.

"Hey guys. So I've been getting a lot of requests to do a video explicitly talking about what to do if you think there's a spirit in your house and you know I'm more than happy to help you all. The thing that I'd advise you to not do if you can help it is try to contact the spirit. Don't use a Ouija board or outwardly talk to it, because once you make it known that you notice it, it's going to come back twice as strong." He explained.

Zoe sighed. "It's a little late for that chunk of gold. Got anything else, baldy?"

He continued. "If the spirit is becoming violent or it's impossible not to notice it then you may call in help from your local paranormal group. They can speak to it and learn more about it. I know a lot of people like to do this themselves, but I do want to advise extreme caution when it comes to communicating with the dead. If you do it wrong, the consequences can be dire."

"Ugh, just get on with it," Zoe groaned.

"It also helps to try and establish what kind of spirit is haunting your home. Is it a nice spirit or a negative entity? You can determine this by the kind of activity you're experiencing. If all you're seeing is the odd orb or rare apparition or things moving harmlessly and all you're hearing is footsteps or soft voices for example, it's likely nothing to be scared of. They won't hurt you if they don't think they have a reason to. If you're experiencing things like growling, hissing, things flying towards you, or if you're feeling unexplainably angry at people you're usually friendly towards or being physically harmed in anyway—scratched, for example—then that is not a spirit to be messed with. I would recommend getting investigators in to check it out or if you don't want to bother with it at all, just move. Cleanse yourself and move out of the home." He explained.

Zoe pressed pause on the video and put her head in her hands. The video wasn't helping one bit. First of all, she'd already communicated with her spirit—unwillingly, of course—and she didn't feel like she had a choice in that matter. If Zak could invade her unconscious mind how could she tell him to go away? Secondly, she didn't know if he was a good or bad spirit. She hadn't felt like she'd been in danger when he'd been so close to her in her dream, but then again she'd been dreaming and he'd been controlling it. Plus, Rose had a point when she said he couldn't be good if he was asking her to perform a sacrificial ritual with her blood. He'd had to do something far more horrible than he was letting on if he'd been trapped in that game. And to think he'd still be there if she'd said goodbye or if she'd never played the thing in the first place.

She decided to give up researching. She felt it pretty obvious she wasn't going to find anything useful and she feared if she read anything about salt circles that she might actually puke. So she opened her iTunes and put it on shuffle and then lied on her back and stared up at her ceiling. She shut her eyes and just listened to the music. If Zak thought he could get the best of her he was seriously wrong. That was her house, not his, and he was going to learn that one way or the other.

She was just letting Freddie Mercury's voice relax her into a musically induced trance when she felt pressure on her ankles. Before she knew it she was being dragged downwards on her bed. She could feel what felt like hands creeping up her legs and the pressure transferred onto her upper thighs. For a moment, she was paralyzed. She couldn't move or even think. Once the pressure on her thighs began to move even farther up, her eyes snapped open and she screamed, finally jumping back and away from the hold. The pressure disappeared and she could hear her heartbeat over her music. She ripped her headphones out of her ears and started yelling, throwing all caution to the wind.

"If you think scaring me is going to persuade me into helping you, you're wrong!" she screamed. "You know what? You can haunt me for the rest of my life, I don't care. You're not going to have a choice if you keep this up! Do you hear me? You won't scare me anymore!"

"Is that so?"

The voice froze her again. Very slowly, she turned towards the wooden chair in the corner of her room underneath her window. He was there; she could _see_ him. How could she see him? Wasn't he supposed to be a ghost; invisible? Instead, he was sitting in her chair, plain as day, with his left ankle resting on the knee of his right leg and he was crouched forwards slightly with his elbow on his thigh and his chin in his palm. He was staring at her with an amused smirk on his pale face and his eyes, instead of being the icy blue she'd seen the night before, were pure, oily black.

"That's funny you should say that," he continued in a humorous tone, "Because you look pretty scared right about now, Zoe Scott."


	4. Chapter 4

He just sat there on her chair with a content, cocky smile on his face. Cold fear had gripped Zoe's throat and she couldn't find words. His eyes were the most frightening part about him. It's like there was nothing there at all; no pupils or irises. All they were was black. If eyes were windows to the soul, it was obvious at that point that Zak never had one to call his own.

"What's the matter?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows. "Don't tell me the cat's got your tongue."

"Y-your e-eyes…" Zoe stammered.

"Oh, right," He blinked and his eyes returned to that icy blue, leaving Zoe wondering if she'd just imagined the whole thing. "Sorry. A guy spends so much time on the Other Side he forgets to keep up appearances."

"But…" Zoe shook her head. "How can I see you? Am I dreaming?"

"You're not actually seeing me," he answered simply. "I'm just a ghost. As a matter of fact, I'm like a hallucination. You see, right now, I'm projecting my full image into your head like a slideshow. You're only seeing me here because I'm interfering with what you would normally see, which is an empty chair."

"I don't understand…"

"It's supernatural, Zoe. I don't expect you to understand a single thing." He smirked.

"What do you want?" Zoe asked, frustrated tears welling up in her eyes. She never liked crying, and because of that she always did it. "Why did you scare my friends?"

"Because you carelessly told your friends," he replied darkly. "Well, you told one of them. Rose, was it? You were practically asking me to do something. You're lucky; I could've done far worse than slam a door."

"Leave them alone," Zoe barked. "They have nothing to do with anything."

"Exactly," Zak stood and a shadow seemed to drown the entire room. "Which is why you shouldn't have said a single word to her."

Zoe pursed her lips shut. She felt unreasonably cold all of the sudden. Zak's stare pierced her as he stepped closer very slowly, like a large cat stalking its prey in the wilderness. She felt vulnerable, weak, and scared. It was a terrible sensation.

"You said you wouldn't be scared," he whispered. "Well. I want to see just how not scared you can be."

"Why are you doing this? Please just leave me alone…"

"I want you to help me. I don't want you to forget."

"I won't, okay? I won't."

"Oh, I know you won't. I won't let you."

"You said you were going to protect me. Well? Who's going to protect me from you?" Zoe blurted out.

Zak stopped in his tracks. He narrowed his eyebrows slightly and tilted his head.

"What?" he whispered.

"In the Ouija board last night," Zoe swallowed. "You spelled out the word protect. I'm assuming you mean protect me, since the only other results you produced had to do with me. So do your job and I'll do mine in due time."

Zak chuckled in an almost menacing sort of way, but he seemed to stand down.

"You're smart, Zoe Scott," he said. "There might be hope for you yet."

Zoe swallowed but didn't say anything. She kept her eyes on Zak at all times, just in case he tried something. But he didn't do anything, much to her surprise. He just stood there with this mysterious grin on his face, like he was admiring her for something while at the same time contemplating what her internal organs might taste like. It unnerved her almost as much as the silence that was suffocating her in the small room.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked quietly.

"It's just funny," Zak mused. "Like I told you, I was a dark angel fighting for the greater good, to preserve humanity. That is, until I was wrongfully charged, blah, blah, blah. You know, I've been pulled from purgatory twice now, and each time it's a member of your family that I see on the other end."

Zoe furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. The more she learned about her visitor the more frustrated she became. He really was something out of her realm of knowledge.

"If you've been pulled out once before, how come you were put back?" she asked.

"It's a long story," Zak shrugged. "I'd hate to bore you. But I have to ask, what do you know about that Ouija board you own? I mean that one in particular."

"It—it was my mom's," Zoe said. "She got it as a teenager back in the 70's. That's all I know."

"Mm," Zak had that cocky smile again. "Has anyone ever told you that you look just like your mother?"

Something cold settled into Zoe's stomach, creating an unpleasant sensation that rippled across her entire body. It was impossible. How could he know what her mom had looked like? Oh, but it was obvious…

"You contacted my mother didn't y—"

"Where is she these days?" Zak interrupted. "How's your mother dearest fairing?"

Zoe swallowed a painful lump and sat up a little straighter.

"She's dead."

Something in Zak changed at the mention of that. His face sort of fell, and at first he looked like he didn't understand what she'd just told him. He reminded her of a puppy dog when it's made to do a trick and it doesn't receive a treat after but it gets disciplined instead. That expression only lasted for a small second before he wiped it away and replaced it with a hard stare that hid any sort of emotion he possessed in his body.

"Oh," he said, "that's unfortunate."

"Yes, it is."

He started to head for the door after that, without another word. Zoe had never been so frustrated by a dead person before.

"Where are you going?" she demanded. She had questions left unanswered; more so than ever before.

"Well I can't leave this shack you call a house so I can guarantee you I'm not going far," he muttered begrudgingly.

"That's it? You're just going to leave after all that?" Zoe asked. "You're not very good at this whole haunting thing."

"Mm, well pardon me while I go break some of your fine China and rearrange your kitchen appliances." He said, flippantly waving his arms in the air. "I'll leave you alone for the rest of the day. Just accept that; don't ask questions or I'll revoke it."

"What about at night?" Zoe asked quietly. "What then?"

Zak gave a wistful smile that still managed to be as dark as the rest of him.

"I made a promise to show up in your every dream," he said. "I won't break that so early in the game."

"So that's what this is? A game?"

Zak only stopped in her doorway and smirked at some twisted irony in his head before he disappeared before Zoe's eyes. Surprisingly, she wasn't shocked or afraid when it happened. She just groaned and put her headphones back on.

It was nearly midnight when Zak rounded the corner into Zoe's darkened room. He leaned against her doorframe and stared at the shadowed mound that was Zoe, lying underneath all of her blankets on the left side of her bed. She was sound asleep, and he was late. She'd probably been having a sleep riddled with anxiety, just waiting for him to pop up. But if he was being honest, he needed to work up to it. She really did look like her mother, and now knowing that her mother was gone it made things even worse.

Nevertheless, he'd made a promise to haunt her dreams every night. He was so gloriously torturous sometimes. So he stepped into her room, around to the right side of her bed, and stood there for a moment just so he could watch her a little. He was no guardian angel keeping resilient watch over his precious human being, of course. No, he had an ulterior motive. He just wanted his freedom and regardless of how sorry for himself he was feeling he needed to do what he had to do to get it. Even if it meant corrupting the poor woman who lay sleeping a couple feet away from him, just like he'd corrupted her mother forty years ago.

Zoe had the same warm skin tone as her mother. She had the same hair, the same eyes, the same smile…it would've hurt him, looking at her just then, if he was capable of such a thing. He looked down at his arm, at the thick black lines that wound their way up and down his biceps, and he remembered what he was. He shouldn't even be thinking about feelings, let alone experiencing them. He'd let himself fall into that trap one too many times before and he wasn't about to do it again.

He settled himself onto her bed, lying on his back on the right side of the mattress. It wasn't the comfiest bed he'd been in, but then again he never slept so it didn't really matter. The pillow felt comforting on his weary head, though. He took a deep breath, allowing himself to regain his cocky composure, and turned his head to look at her slumbering face. Despite all the fear and confusion she was still able to sleep at night. He had to admire her for that. She was resilient like her mother, too.

But he pushed those thoughts away and shut his eyes, transporting himself into her head. He needed to liven his mood up a bit, so he picked a particular scene that might just do it for him. When he opened his eyes, they were both still on a bed, although this one was cloaked in red satin sheets and had a sloping roof supported by four scratched posts. Seedy music played in the background somewhere, accompanied by loud voices and glasses clinking, all muffled by the four walls they were enclosed in. The floor was red shag carpet and the roof was black crushed velvet. Zoe was dressed in a short, skin-tight sparkling red off-the-shoulder dress, with her hair and makeup done like a 1940's girl. He grinned at her as she opened her eyes.

"What the hell…" she murmured as she became aware of her surroundings.

"Hello there, kitten," Zak said.

She jumped a little and sat up, turning her wide eyes on him. The dress glinted and sparkled in the dim lighting as her chest heaved with frantic breaths.

"Where are we? Why are we in a bed together?" she demanded.

"Well," Zak put his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles. "We are in a very eclectic velvet room off the side of a shady building that typically hosts raves, college drinking fests, and the odd orgy. And if I had to guess as to why we're in a bed together, well…" He tossed her a crooked grin and a wink.

She gagged and hastily jumped out of the bed.

"Why the _hell_ would you take me here?" she asked. "I was enjoying a nice stroll down the streets of Venice with the Prince of Normandy and you rip me away from that to take me _here_?"

"Yep," Zak said, sitting up and tapping his fingers against the inside of his thigh. "The Prince of Normandy, eh? You're really high-maintenance in that dream world of yours, aren't you?"

"Shut up," She groaned. "Part of me was waiting for you to show up and ruin everything."

"I know you were." He smirked.

"Oh get over yourself," She snapped. "I have questions for you that I want answered."

"Someone's on the demanding side tonight," Zak said. "But alright, I'll entertain you. What kind of questions?"

"How did you know my mother?"

Zak gave her a hard glare and didn't speak for a moment. Part of him wanted to lash out and tell her to shut her mouth, but he knew he couldn't do that, not yet. So he promptly jumped out of the bed and started walking around it towards her. She backed up as he got closer until she backed into the wall and trapped herself. He didn't get very close, but just close enough to have influence over her.

"If that's the game you want to play," he said, "we're going to play it my way. I'm going to ask you a question that I want answered and then I'll think about answering your question."

"That's not fair—"

"Too late!" he yelled. "I want you to tell me how your mother died."

Zoe looked confused and slightly offended. She wouldn't take her eyes off of his but he could tell she wanted to.

"Why do you want to know?"

"That's not how the game is played. Tell me."

"…Katrina," she whispered. "She died when Katrina hit."

Zak's tongue flicked across his bottom lip for a brief second and he relaxed his tensed muscles. He should've known; he really should've known. They sent Katrina in just to spite the humans, mainly the voodoo practitioners…he could've stopped it if he hadn't been trapped in fucking purgatory, too. He could've saved her life. She would've owed him.

"Right," he murmured with a tiny nod.

"Now you answer my question," Zoe said, standing up a little taller. "How did you know my mother? She was the one who let you out of the game the first time, wasn't she?"

"That's two questions; that's cheating."

"I don't care. Tell me how you knew her."

"It doesn't matter now, does it?"

"Oh, please. It was her game; it's obvious it was her. Why do you care about my mother, Zak? Why were you so persistent on finding out what happened to her?"

Zak gave her a warning glare.

"You're getting awfully greedy with these questions…"

"Why do you care about her?" Zoe repeated sharply.

"I never said I gave a damn about your mother," Zak growled. "I was only curious. Are you done?"

"No. My turn for a question again," Zoe grinned maliciously. Zak rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. "How did you get thrown back into purgatory?"

"I suppose you could call it a cruel twist of fate." He muttered.

"Did you have something to do with her death?"

"No—what?" he asked incredulously. Had she really just suggested…?

"I know people make deals with you-you things…did you have anything to do with my mother dying? Did you make a deal with somebody?"

Zak grinned confidently, stepping a little closer to the cowering girl.

"You don't even know what I am."

"Because you won't tell me!" she argued.

"No, I won't." Zak stepped right up to her then, holding her against the wall with just his proximity. He could feel her anxious breath on his throat. "Do you know why I won't? I won't say because I know you're thinking it. I've been inside your head more often than you think in the short time we've known each other."

He brushed a curled piece of her hair out of her face and she inhaled sharply, turning her face away from his touch. He laughed at her.

"I don't know what I think," she growled. "I just know that you're not good. I know you're no 'dark angel,' so you lied about that, which means you likely also lied about how you got thrown in purgatory in the first place. You didn't fight in the civil war, did you? Would you care to tell me the truth at least?"

"You don't want to know what really happened." He murmured darkly, his eyes flashing that horrid solid black for just a split second.

"Yes, I do." Zoe argued. "I want to know who—no, you're not a who. I want to know _what_ I'm dealing with."

"Alright, pretty doll," Zak said, staring down his nose at her. "How about this: first, you tell me what you think I am. If you're right, I'll tell you my true story and we'll see if you make it through the tale without running away."

"Why do I have to tell you?" Zoe whispered, her voice trembling softly.

"Because I want to hear you say it." Zak replied simply.

Zoe took in a deep breath. Her eyes roamed the space between their bodies as if she was searching the carpeted floor for some secret trap door out of her compromised position, but she had no way out. She was stuck between a cold wall and an even colder being, and she'd be the first to admit that she was already terrified.

"D-demon," she whispered. "You're a demon."

"Ding-ding-ding!" Zak shouted, shaking his finger in time with the words. His outburst made Zoe jump. "We have a winner! Oh, that felt good…"

"N-now tell me what you did." Zoe said, not willing to drop the fight yet.

"You're not going to like it." Zak sang tauntingly.

"Just tell me."

Zak shrugged before bursting forth into his tale soaked with death, nightmares, and blood.

"I'm something from your worst nightmare. I came to earth to harvest the weak civilization known as the human race. And oh, it was so easy. You're right, I didn't fight in the civil war; I started it. I pitted an entire nation against itself! I created sides, and I drank every drop of blood that fell to the soil. With every macabre death I was there waiting. I'd watch them fight and I'd feed on their rage and when they'd die, I'd drink their blood and consume their souls, cursing them to damnation. I soaked up the hatred and the despair, the sorrow, the selfishness, the pain…it gave me such immense strength. It's what I do; it's what _we_ do. And while the men were dying their women were crying. Their tears were salty sweet and warm; irresistible. I'd rape them in their sleep, in the comfort of their own war-torn houses and soiled beds. I impregnated a chosen few with the seed of the antichrist. Many of them died just trying to carry a demon child, and that was half the fun. It was absolutely beautiful…until one night, a woman woke up. She saw me leaving; she saw my face. And then I learned, just as I had been walking amongst the humans disguised as one of them, another had chosen the same mask. She was a god, an annoyingly holy do-gooder, veiled by a human body, a body I had just invaded. She locked me in her home with one twitch of her heavenly finger and trapped me in a pentagram on the floor. I asked her to send me back to hell if she was going to banish me, but she said that hell would be too kind. So she sent me into purgatory. I was half-alive, half-dead, surrounded by all the misery of the lost souls. I was weakened and I remained a fragile shell for a hundred years, only feeding on the broken souls of the damned that had joined me. And once I was strong enough I began looking for a way out. I searched for years before I found it. A supernatural craze was sweeping the globe like never before. There were so-called prophets and self-proclaimed mediums hosting séances, looking for things like me. I tried to get through so many times but they were smart. They all said goodbye. And then I found the Ouija boards; a clever little device, really, invented by a genius. So many young, delicious girls saw them as just games, nothing real. Your board in particular, well, I've had excellent luck with it, as you know."

Zoe had fallen silent. She felt like she was shackled to the wall; she couldn't move. His story had been chilling, his dark, low voice massaging every single word with a certain amount of contempt. There was a moment when he'd been speaking about how he'd started the civil war and fed off the soldiers that she could see him for who he really was, and it was terrifying. His face had become malevolent and shadowed by the dark memories with a smile like he was relishing in it; as if he could still taste the blood and sorrow from those days on the back of his tongue. His hands had gripped and slashed at the air as he'd told his grisly tale, adding even more reality to the sadistic events. He was more than capable of doing all of that do her, too.

When Zak noticed the look of quiet fear on Zoe's face, he stepped back a little more.

"I told you that you weren't going to like it." he said.

He'd been right, she'd hated it. She hated him for what he'd done, even though the events of the 1860's were entirely out of her control. But regardless of that she needed to move on from it. She wasn't going to get rid of him anytime soon but she wasn't going to forget what he'd told her and how he'd looked when he'd said it.

"That's when you met my mom," she said gently. "She let you out of the Ouija board the first time."

"Yes." Zak's face was hard as stone.

"Tell me about her, please," she whispered.

"You don't want to know about that," He shook his head. He didn't want to tell her.

"Yes, I do," Tears choked her up. "It's my mother, Zak. I want to know whatever you do. Tell me, please, I need to know."

He knew he'd have to tell her eventually. If she was anything like her mother, which so far she'd been proving herself to be a carbon copy, she wouldn't give up asking. But he had one last-ditch attempt at making her forget it for one last night.

"Well this isn't the place to discuss it," he said gently.

He thought of the place and in a second they were there. He leaned against the dark oak dresser that still had all of her little trinkets and jewellery on it. Zoe opened her eyes and was confused by the dark room at first, but then she began recognizing things. She spun around a few times, muttering nonsense to herself, and backed away into the centre of the room in an effort not to touch anything. There was panic on her face.

"No, no, no," she muttered. "This is her room, this is _her_ room! My mother's room…at my old house…please, I can't be here. I can't…this house was destroyed with mom…please…no, no…"

Zak's face gave nothing away. He just watched her come undone, waiting for her to say the words. Behind his back his fingers brushed over two little diamond earrings. He knew without looking at them that they'd been the ones she'd been wearing the day he'd met her. It stabbed at something inside of him when he felt them. He slipped them into his pocket for the time being and continued to watch Zoe as she started crumbling.

"Take me away from this place," she begged. "Please, I don't want to be here anymore."

"Are you sure?" Zak asked.

"Yes. I want to go now."

In another second they were standing on a cobblestone street under a grandeur sunset as people chatted down alleyways and shops began closing up for the night. Zoe looked around at their surroundings and sniffed.

"Where are we now?" she asked.

"We're back in Venice," Zak answered. He pointed down the street to the only shop still totally lit up. "The Prince of Normandy is in that gelato shop right now. Spoiler alert but he's buying you strawberry banana flavour."

"Oh…" Zoe said quietly. "But, I wanted to hear about my mom."

"Another night, maybe," Zak shook his head. "You're not ready yet."

"Yes I am!" Zoe protested as the breeze tousled her hair.

"You didn't see yourself back in that room," Zak said. "Trust me, you're not ready."

Zoe's fight went out like a doused flame after that. She really was done. And if he'd done her the favour of returning her to her original dream, what right did she have to protest?

"Are you gonna stay?" she asked quietly. "I mean, do demons like gelato…?"

Zak chuckled. "Nah, we're more of a carnage and pain type."

"Right…" She nodded sadly. "Zak?"

"What?"

"Are you…I mean, would you do any of that to me? _If_ I free you, when it's all said and done, would you kill me like you did all those people in the 1800's?" The thought had been troubling her and if she was going to die, she'd feel a bit better knowing beforehand.

Zak looked at her for a moment before shaking his head and slipping his hands into his pockets, fondling the diamond earrings with one hand.

"You said yourself I made a promise to protect you," he explained. "If you free me, that's your prize: eternal protection from anything, anywhere, any time. I'll protect you from everything, including myself. It's kind of a moral contract; I'm bound to that, at least."

"So you'd never really hurt me?" she asked.

"Not if you don't ask for it," he warned. "Don't make me find the loopholes, Zoe Scott."

She gave him a tiny smile. "I don't think it'd be in my best interest to do that."

"No, I don't either. You better hurry up, your prince awaits, Sleeping Beauty." He nodded down the street at the royalty looking for Zoe.

"Oh yeah," Zoe said wistfully, looking at the poor soul down the street.

"You never know, it might last with him," Zak joked.

"Nah, it's really just a fantasy," She shrugged. "It's only a dream, right?"

"Yep," Zak agreed. "Enjoy it."

Zoe watched as the demon turned his back and faded into the shadows. She could hear footsteps approaching her from behind and a voice speaking her name in a funny accent, but she just kept staring at the spot that Zak had vanished. He was absolutely terrifying, twisted, and a homicidal sociopath, but she had a feeling that was only a small part of him. Maybe it was the hundred years spent weakened in purgatory that'd done it, but she felt like most of the part of him that'd driven him to slaughter and rape had been killed off. There was a part of him that cared about something; she could see it in his face from time to time before he blocked her out. If she could figure out what that something was she might be able to have a bit more control in her situation. But alas, that was a problem for the morning. So in the meantime she politely took her bowl of gelato from the Prince of Normandy and they continued their dream walk down a lit up cobblestone street in romantic Venice, and all around them the shadows came to life in their wake.


	5. Chapter 5

She'd left immediately after work to avoid the hectic evening traffic on the highway. Her fingers anxiously tapped the steering wheel out of tune with the radio music playing out of the speakers. The radio station she was listening to had already played the same song twice over but she didn't notice. She was too focused on where she was going and what she might find there.

She was travelling from Clarks to Winnfield, to see her father. He lived in a small, modest house there on the south end. She hadn't seen him in months; they typically just conversed over the telephone. It was hard for them to see one another, really. Every time they looked at each other they saw the ghost of what had happened in the other's eyes. They still loved one another and never failed to keep tabs on each other, but it was hard. After Zoe's mother died so horrifically, a link somewhere was shattered and things were knocked askew. For awhile she thought that maybe they would get better. Maybe it was just a matter of healing and moving on. But it'd been years and Zoe was beginning to realize that it was permanent. It made her sad, but she knew there wasn't much she could do about it anymore.

When she'd phoned her father the night before she left, he'd sounded surprised, and rightfully so. It felt like forever since they last made an effort to physically see one another, and it nearly had been. But Zoe explained that there were some things that had been weighing on her mind lately and she needed to gain closure on them. In order to do so, she had to travel to her father's house and investigate the last remaining relics of her mother's existence that he'd managed to scavenge from the wreck of their home in New Orleans.

Although she could probably count on both hands the number of times she'd been to her father's house, she knew her way there by heart. It was just one of those things she thought was important to memorize her first go around. It was a fear thing, sort of. She felt safer knowing exactly how to find his house if another natural disaster were to strike. She wanted to at least know how to find her father and be able to get to him if something like that were to happen. That was more than she could say for her mother.

She pulled into the narrow paved driveway and looked out her window at the house. It had white siding with a faded blue trim around the door, windows, and roof. There was a tree in the front yard that shaded a majority of the house and colourful flowers planted along the front of it. She never knew why her father decided to plant flowers, but she didn't really question it. She put her vehicle in park, gathered her belongings and her courage, and walked up to the front door. She knocked three times and waited. The sun was hot, but the shade from the tree kept her from getting the worst of its rays.

Her father opened the door shortly after her third knock, and she grinned at him. He was 59 years old, but admittedly, the loss of his wife had aged him substantially. His hair was thin and grey, brushed into a slick, small comb over. He had wrinkles on his forehead and around his drooped eyes, magnified slightly by large glasses. He wore a dark green pullover with the collar flattened down, dark blue jeans, and a bright smile for his only daughter.

"Zo-Zo," he said affectionately, "come in, sweetheart."

"Hey, dad," Zoe said softly, stepping inside and sharing a hug with her father. "How've you been?"

"Oh, you know. I've been keeping busy." He responded, gesturing to the couch by the window. "Take a seat. Do you want some tea?"

"Sure," she agreed, sitting politely on the edge of the couch cushion. She clung to her purse, for no particular reason, and stared around at the living room.

It was a small space, certainly, but there was plenty crammed into it. The entire house was a relatively open concept, so from her spot on the couch she could see across to the dining table. Inside the living room, however, was a glass coffee table, as well as two large recliner chairs with a small table between them, which was filled with a box of tissues, a case for his glasses, the TV remote, a stack of coasters, and underneath it was a stand full of magazines and newspapers. If Zoe knew her father, the magazines were all about fishing, hunting, and cars. He was a very traditional father, so to speak. The TV was a 40" flat screen, propped up on an appropriate stand against the wall, with a DVD player and all the fixings underneath it. Her father owned maybe three DVD's that were still in their packaging, so she couldn't fathom why he needed a DVD player, but again it was just one of those things she didn't question. The walls themselves were decorated with a few paintings, several pictures of Zoe as a baby, in elementary school, middle school, and high school, with pictures from both her high school graduation and her college graduation. Along with that, there were pictures of her mother. She tried not to look at those. It wasn't that she didn't want to see her mother, because she had pictures of her mother all over her own little house, but it was just that for some reason, it hurt her to know that her father had put those up after her mother had passed away. Had he cried, hooking them into a nail on the wall? Had he wept over their wedding photo? What did he say to any friends that came over and asked about her? It made her own bottom lip quiver a little just thinking about it, so she chose to stop while she was ahead.

Her father re-entered the living room from the kitchen, sporting two steaming mugs of tea. He handed one to Zoe, who thanked him, and then he slipped a coaster onto the coffee table for her. He set his own mug on a coaster on the end table as he sat down in one of the recliners and gave his daughter a curious look.

"Now, I feel it's only necessary to ask, what brings you here to see me? Don't get me wrong, I'm overjoyed to see you, Zoe. I'm just wondering what's on your mind." He said.

Zoe set her tea down on the coaster, finding it far too hot to drink just yet, and ran her index finger up and down the ceramic handle a few times to avoid eye contact with her father.

"You still have mom's journals, right?" she asked.

Her father was silent and completely still for a moment. The discomfort was obvious in his body language and on his face, but he tried not to let it show in his words.

"Yes, yes, they're in the basement in a box. Why?" he asked.

"I just…I don't know, dad. It's really hard for me to explain. I just want to go through them all. I've been missing her a lot lately and I feel like reading them might help me. I'll give them all back, obviously, I just…I'd like to borrow them for a bit."

She felt so bad, lying to him like that. The real reason she wanted them was to search and see if she mentioned Zak in any of her entries. Her mother had kept journals since she was eleven, and her father had all of them. So if she had met Zak at some point in her lifetime, there had to be something about him in those journals. It was a last ditch effort, but she needed to figure it out. Since Zak refused to say much about it, she needed to learn for herself. Of course she couldn't tell her father that she wanted to see them to find out if her mother hand encountered the same demon she was now dealing with; what would he think of that? He'd call her a nutcase and she certainly wouldn't get her hands on the journals.

"Alright, I understand that. You want all of them?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I-I would like to get them back, though."

"Of course. I know how much they mean to you, too."

"Okay. You can get them before you leave. Until then…we both have tea to finish. Enlighten me on your life, Zo-Zo-Bo."

Zoe's lips quirked up in a childish smile at the nickname. He'd been calling her that for as long as she could remember. In her teens she'd pretended to be embarrassed by it, but she secretly loved it. It was her favourite nickname, but she only liked it when her father said it to her. She'd liked it when her mother had said it to her, too, but she'd long forgotten what that sounded like.

Later, when Zoe had stayed long enough and finished her tea, she descended the stairs into her father's basement with him at her heels.

"It seems a tad masochistic, what you're doing," he announced on the stairs. "Don't get me wrong, I understand, but even I have difficulty just looking at this box, let alone reading what's inside of it."

"I know," Zoe answered, heading into the aptly named junk room. "I just feel ready to look at all of them. I haven't been able to get them off my mind the last few days."

Actually, she hadn't been able to get the possibility of her mother having met and freed Zak off of her mind the last few days.

"If you really think you'll be okay with it," he sighed. "I don't necessarily do so well when I get phone calls concerning emotional distress at ridiculous hours of the night."

Zoe forced a laugh.

"You won't be getting any of those from me, I can promise you that. I'll be fine, dad. Ah, here they are…"

She hauled a medium sized, heavy box out from the pile of random junk and carried it out into the main room of the basement. She brushed off the dust from the top and was about to look inside but she could feel the discomfort coming off of her father in waves, so she decided against it.

"Good. Thanks, dad. You'll get these back soon, I promise." She said, giving him a tiny smile.

"Alright, dear," he said dismissively.

Zoe hauled the box up the stairs and out to her car. When she had it settled firmly in the trunk, she turned around to find her father holding her purse out to her. She took it from him and embraced him in a hug.

"It was nice to see you, dad. I'm sorry if I upset you at all."

"You could never upset me, kiddo," he said into her shoulder. "Any day I get to see your face and not just hear your voice is a good day in my books."

Zoe kissed his cheek and dug her keys out of her purse.

"I should get back. Thanks again, dad. I'll phone you in a couple days, yeah?"

"I'd like that."

She waved goodbye to him as she reversed out of his driveway and started back the way she'd came. Her heart gave a few painful throbs as she left. She never liked to leave anywhere, especially not her dad's house. Sure, it wasn't _her_ house. She hadn't grown up in that house with her mother and father. That house was gone now. Anyways, it didn't matter if she'd grown up in it or not, it was his house, and he lived there, and she loved him. He was her father. She worried.

She was well aware that sifting through all the pages her mother had once touched and reading the words that her mother had once carefully thought out, scribbled out, and written down, was going to seriously hurt. She had a pretty good feeling that she was going to cry a lot. However, she knew she needed to check. If there was just one indication that she'd known Zak at one point in her life and even freed him from the Ouija board and then sent him back, she had to find it. She needed that validation. Since her mother was gone, reading her written words was the only way to gain her side of the story, not just Zak's, which would likely be entirely biased anyway. She had to know not only if it happened, but how it happened, why, and what he'd done to get sent back into purgatory. She needed to know what had happened between them. It terrified her to think about what she might find, but she had to leave that behind. She had to ditch anything that might keep her from learning the truth.

It was practically dark out when she got home. Crickets chirped all over the place as she climbed out of her vehicle, replacing the birds who had taken to their nests for the night. She removed the box from the trunk, locked her car and walked to her front door. She fumbled with the keys for a bit, trying to fit it in the lock. She wasn't even in the house yet and she felt watched. She knew he was in there, and he was likely angry because she hadn't been home all day. What did he do with his time? If he was just a ghost, did he go around in circles all day, repeating himself? She guessed not.

Eventually she got the key in the lock and twisted it. Her door creaked open with the same loud sound as always that she loved. Her house was pitch black as she stepped inside and shut the door behind her with her foot. She felt along the wall for the light switch and flicked it on. She was about to remove her shoes when she noticed several things were off about the room in front of her.

First of all, her furniture had been moved around. Her couch was back in front of the fireplace, even though she'd moved it back over by the TV several days ago. The chair that was usually over by the door was positioned directly in front of the TV. And all around her glass was broken on the floor and several picture frames were facing down on their shelves or on the floor. She gingerly set the box down on the floor and carefully walked over to where a bunch of glass was splayed out around a face-down picture frame. She picked up the frame and her heart sunk very quickly when she turned it over and saw her mother's face looking back at her. Only a few pieces of glass remained in the frame. She quickly learned that every single picture frame that had been pushed off of its shelf or left lying face-down was a picture that had something to do with her mother. And they were everywhere: in the living room, the kitchen, and even upstairs in the hallway and in her bedroom. Everything that had to do with her mother was on the floor or toppled over in complete disarray.

Thinking of the journals, she rushed back downstairs to thankfully find the box untouched. When she bent down to touch it, she felt something warm and wet land on to back of her hand. When she looked down she realized it had come from her. She was crying and she hadn't noticed. She'd been too distracted by her rage to realize that she was crying, too.

She ran to the kitchen and grabbed the garbage bin. She dragged it noisily into the living room and began to toss the glass inside of it, letting the tears flow freely onto the mess.

"Monster, you're a monster," she muttered to herself.

As she was cleaning up the last mess of shattered glass in the living room, she sliced her thumb on one of the sharper pieces. She screamed, not really in pain or fear, but more in frustration.

_"I hate you!" _she yelled. She didn't know if it'd mean anything to him. She didn't even know if he was listening. She was just so angry. "Don't you ever touch my mother's stuff again, you _monster_! You leave her alone! _Leave me alone!_"

She then proceeded to put her head in her bloody hands and she continued to cry. All the frustration from the past weeks had built up inside of her, and this act of vandalism to some of her most treasured memories had been the last nail in her coffin. She broke down.

From the shadowed corners of the room, he watched her. He actually felt remorse. When he'd been pushing over everything that reminded him of her, he hadn't thought about Zoe at all. He'd just been so angry. But because of that, Zoe was now injured and crying on the floor after loudly declaring to the open air that he was public enemy number one. So, he felt it best to play the part of a shunned dog and stay in the shadows while she gathered herself. He didn't even bother to see what was in the box. He didn't care. He was too busy feeling kind of bad and also feeling kind of angry that Zoe's words of hatred had actually sliced into him a bit. What kind of weak flesh did he have? He was a _demon_; an angel from Lucifer's highest ranks, not some feeble human being with emotions and a sensitive heart. He shouldn't give a single damn about what the silly girl thought about him, but he did. He cared that Zoe hated him, just like he cared that _she_ had once loved him. But _she_ was gone, and she wasn't coming back. He had to deal with that now. That was mainly what drove him to destroy everything in relation to her in that house. Destruction was his only form of release; he didn't know how to behave differently.

Eventually Zoe stopped her crying and stood up, replacing the garbage bin in the kitchen. She wiped her eyes as she walked right past him so she could pick up the mystery box and carry it up the stairs. He remained in the darkened living room for awhile until he heard the bed creak as she got into it. Then, only when he'd heard her breathing and heart rates slow, did he creep up the stairs to join her once again. He didn't much feel like invading her dreams. He knew she was still angry, he could sense it. He'd hide in her dreams, like the pathetic excuse for a monster he was. She'd know he was there, but he'd basically be nothing but background noise; unimportant and barely there. After all, she deserved at least one good night's sleep out of the entire messy ordeal.


End file.
